The bundles feature of Google Reader is a really simple way to create OPML files for sharing with even your most- technology challenged friends. An OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language) is an xml file that contains links to other RSS feeds, but Google makes it all transparent. To create your own shareable bundle, click on “Browse for stuff” where you’ll see bundles recommended by Google staff, and the ability to roll your own. Learn more about Google’s feed bundles at TechCrunch.

Yahoo! Pipes is a sophisticated composition tool for manipulating RSS feeds. With it, you can filter, sort, translate and geocode your RSS feeds into perfection. For the simpler task of just aggregating multiple feeds into a single RSS feed, there’s Feedstitch. Both tools are free, and allow you to use your resulting RSS feeds however you wish.

If you are using a modern browser such as Firefox 2.0, Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0, or Safari you might have noticed an orange (or blue) RSS icon in the upper right-hand corner of many websites, such as my Jokes By Kidssite. If the site owner has added the appropriate RSS autodiscovery code to their site, you can quickly add their RSS feed to your favorite feed reader by clicking on the RSS icon in the address bar. This saves you the trouble of searching through their site for an RSS link. If you have a website, learn how to add this special code to your own site at PeteFrietag.com.

In addition to being a handy way to keep up with updates from your favorite sites, RSS feeds also can also be added to your own website as source of fresh content. There are a variety of free tools that enable webmasters to publish third-party feeds. My favorite is Carp but it requires a bit of technical know how. An easier option is RSS Feed Reade. Be sure to check a feed’s copyright and usage restrictions before republishing it.

If you are comfortable with RSS feeds, then you are technical enough to use Yahoo! Pipes to create a new web service. Yahoo! Pipes is an exciting feed aggregator that gives non-programmers a way to create data mashups: merging web content from a variety of sources to create a unique output. This is the sort of tool that gets more impressive as you work with it. To learn more, peruse the Yahoo! Pipes discussion forum or read Alex Iskold.

RSS (Rich Site Summary) is a data format for receiving news feeds (such as headlines or full-content newsletters) from your favorite websites. Firefox Mozilla and AOL Netscape browsers have built-in RSS capabilities. Users of other browsers (such as Microsoft Internet Explorer) will need an RSS newsreader. To learn more, check out CNET or Surfnetkids.

For Harry Potter fans that need a daily dose of Potter news, several sites are now offering their HP headlines in RSS. The RSS format makes it easy to keep up with Harry Potter, without having to individually visit many sites. Here are three Harry Potter news feeds in RSS format: The Leaky Cauldron, Harry Potter Automatic News Aggregator and BBC News: Harry Potter In Depth.

Although Google.com is often considered the killer search engine, there are a number of search tricks that Yahoo.com can perform that Google can’t. For example, in Yahoo you can narrow your search results to XML/RSS feeds via a file type selector on the Advanced Search page. For more Yahoo tips, read best-selling author Tara Calashain’s “Four Things Yahoo Can Do That Google Can’t.” This free PDF download is a sample from her newly released book “Web Search Garage.”

Reading RSS newsfeeds has gotten a whole lot easier with these three free browser-based newsreaders. My Yahoo Bloglines work in any browser without any additional software. To add RSS feeds to your customized My Yahoo page, select Choose Content/RSS Headlines. Pluck is also browser-based, but requires Windows 2000 or XP, Internet Explorer 6, and a free software download.

RSS (Rich Site Summary) is an up and coming online format that allows subscribers to receive feeds (such as headlines or full-content newsletters) from their favorite websites. But RSS feeds can not be read by your existing browser or email client; they require a special RSS newsreader. My two favorite RSS readers are NewsGator, and the free, web-based Bloglines. For more information read About Email or the Surfnetkids RSS newsletter announcement.